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Hanseatic merchants in Bergen, Norway lived according to the Gartenrecht, "garden law," which regulated many aspects of social relations. This short sample is characteristic.
SOURCE: John Gade. The Hanseatic Control of Norwegian Commerce During the Late Middle Ages. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1951. p. 81.
Included here under fair use regulations.
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Page 81 |
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If anyone, be it the head of the house, guest or apprentice, has with him any loose woman on the eve of a church festival or when free beer is being drunk, then the guilty member must furnish neighbors and apprentices a whole keg of beer, and the woman is to be thrown into the Vaag [into the bay], without any mercy of excuse whatsoever. During the four sacred winter eves [St. Martin's, Christmas, Easter, and either St. Michael's or New Year's eves] when the neighbors have provided beer, whoever has drunk too much so that he disturbs the peace and vomits from his excess or does not properly trim his candle has to pay, without dispensation, a fine of a barrel of beer. Whichever neighbors starts a row when neighbors have met, must pay, without dispensation, two barrels of beer, be it neighbor, guest or apprentice.
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